Merry Christmas
by clair beaubien
Summary: Steve and Buck and Christmas 1943


"Tomorrow's Christmas," Steve said. He and Bucky were on a solo recon mission and were taking shelter for the night in a barn on an abandoned farm.

"Is it?" Bucky asked. He was breaking twigs and branches fallen from the surrounding white pine trees to build a small fire on the dirt floor of the barn.

"Pretty sure."

"Well, when you're _really_ sure, you let me know."

Steve laughed and set two crates next to the fire for them to sit on. "If we get an early enough start, we should make it back to camp by mid-morning."

"I call dibs on the first pot of coffee," Bucky said. The fire was burning and he took a seat on his crate and pulled his coat tighter around himself.

"The whole pot?" Steve complained, taking the other crate. "One dog, one bone I guess."

"Hey, you're Captain America - do you even need coffee anymore? Put that watch cap on and pull your scarf over your face, that'll help keep you warm."

"_'You're Captain America - don't forget to keep warm'_? You know I've been a soldier almost as long as you have."

"Yeah, but I've been on the front longer."

"Yeah, you have," Steve agreed. He pulled on the knit hat and tugged his scarf higher around his chin.

For a while they sat in silence, watching the fire and listening for sounds across the snowy land around the barn. Bucky had a thin pine branch in his hand and he lazily twirled it around.

"Remember Christmases when we were kids?" He asked Steve. "Every year I tried to find where Mom and Pop hid the presents. But no matter how hard I looked, I never found any. No presents, no tree. I'd go to bed Christmas Eve - nothing. I'd wake up Christmas morning - there was the tree all decorated and all the presents underneath. I never figured out how they did that, every year. But they did."

"I remember that," Steve said and grinned. "I guess you must've been a pretty sound sleeper."

"Ah, dry up."

After a while, they banked the fire, made up some beds out of old sacking and straw, and went to sleep.

In the morning, Steve came awake feeling something tickling his face. He brushed it away and felt pine needles. He opened his eyes to see a white pine branch above him. The blunt end had been shoved into the dirt floor between him and Bucky and the needled end hung close to his face, weighed down by a small cloth-wrapped package tied to it with a piece of string.

"What the - ?" He sat up and stared at the branch. "Hey - " Bucky was still sleeping next to him and Steve shoved his shoulder to wake him up. "You see this? What is this?"

"Go away, let me sleep," Bucky complained. He rolled away from Steve but Steve pulled him back.

"You're not sleeping, I can tell." He shoved Bucky again. "You did this, jerk. What is it?"

Bucky laughed and sat up,

"What does it look like, punk? It's a Christmas present. Are you gonna open it or what?"

"When did you do this? We both went to sleep at the same time."

"Well, I guess you must be a pretty sound sleeper." Bucky answered, grinning.

Steve answered that with a sarcastic scoff and untied the bundle from the branch.

"When did you even have the chance to get me anything?"

"Nope, Santa doesn't give away his secrets."

"But I didn't get you anything."

Bucky's grin faltered just briefly then was replaced with his genuinely warm smile.

"Yeah, you did. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't even be here."

Steve looked around their small, cramped, dirty accommodations. "That can be taken a couple of ways," he said. He opened the cloth wrapping. A compass slid into his hand.

"Bucky - Buck - this is your compass. I can't take your compass. What're you going to use?"

"What d'you mean, what am I gonna use?" Bucky said and gave Steve a shove. "You and that compass going somewhere without me? I don't think so. You might be Captain America to the rest of the world, that don't mean I stop watching your back. You're stuck with me, pal." He stood up and brushed bits of straw off his uniform and out of his hair. "Now, c'mon. Let's get going. There's a pot of coffee waiting for me back at camp."

Steve stared at the compass in his hand as he stood up. "Hey," he said and when Bucky turned from kicking mud over the ashes of their small fire, he pulled him in for a hug. "I just - you know - I just -"

"Yeah, I know," Bucky said, returning the hug.

"Merry Christmas, Buck."

"Merry Christmas, Steve."

The End.


End file.
